


Sleep for the Dead

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Series: The Pacemakers [29]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Compromise, Cuddling & Snuggling, Distrust, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Roller Coaster, Hallucinations, Insomnia, Irrationality, Longing, Medical issues, Mood Swings, Multi, Pace-Mates, Panic, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sleep Deprivation, Stress, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 08:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3804361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"I may not be able to transform, but I can still walk...Oohh..." - Brawn, "Enter the Nightbird"<em></em></em>
</p><p> </p><p>Minibots have always been proud, never wanting to show weakness. If given the opportunity, they'll refuse to go to medical until their last circuit fails. For one of them, this opportunity has arisen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep for the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Cybertronian Time Measurements:  
> Klik - 1 Second  
> Joor - 1 Hour  
> Orn - 1 Day
> 
> Pace - A company or herd of mules; in my headcanon, a family of Minibots, due to their charming natures

Huffer’s body was moving before his CPU even registered it. Opening the door and stepping into the hallway, he turned on the light above the door, slumped against the wall and vented heavily, pressing his hands to his face. Again. This had been happening every night without fail for the last…how long had it been?

He couldn’t recharge. For joors on end he would listen to the varyingly-toned hums of his pace recharging and he alone would be unable to power down. Around midnight he would stumble out here and grieve the loss of rest.

This had happened when he was a sparkling. He could tell he’d run his Carrier ragged, but he simply couldn’t help running to her and begging that she help him somehow. She’d let him into her berth and sung to him, softly enough that she wouldn’t wake his Sire, and he had recharged—fitfully, but it was recharge nonetheless. Eventually the periods lengthened and then he was finally resting full nights.

Huffer didn’t know what had changed, but for this past however-long-it-was, his troubles had returned. He shuddered, pressed his knuckles against his optics before straightening with an ex-vent that should have been more calming than it was.

Grieving over. Next: busying himself. Plodding wearily to the rec room, he dug around in the store for a cube of medium-grade and found only high and low. High-grade, definitely. If he drank enough of it, maybe he would fall into a stupor.

No such luck, of course. He pushed the cube aside, feeling queasy and staring at the wall, letting time wash over him until the first of the early risers entered the rec room.

“Oh! I didn’t expect anyone to be here,” Jazz remarked. Huffer didn’t respond and Jazz turned his attention to the energon stock, swaying back and forth as he viewed his choices. “I wake up every mornin’, I stumble out of bed—Stretchin’ and yawnin’, another day ahead—It seems to last forever, and time goes slowly by—”

“Stop!” Huffer cried out, his arms flailing out and knocking over his energon.

Jazz cleared his throat awkwardly and questioned, “Not a mornin’ person?”

Huffer shook his helm miserably, watching the energon slide across the table and spill off the other side.

“Well, sorry, my mech.” Jazz smiled apologetically and approached, swiping at the energon dripping from the table corner. “I didn’t mean to get’cha high-wired.”

Again Huffer didn’t answer and Jazz’s smile faded into a puzzled frown. “You alright?”

It took a few kliks to get a response, but the mute nod did come and then Huffer rose to his feet in search of something to clean up the mess.

Just as Jazz’s song lyrics had said, the day seemed to last for centuries. Every sound seemed amplified and taxed his ‘high-wired’ processor. Huffer kept his mouth clamped shut until its cogs throbbed, doing his best to be unobtrusive and unnoticed. Because he wasn’t very popular among the Autobots, this was easy and he tried to use that time to hone his skills.

On the weapons’ range he focused everything he had—which wasn’t much—on the targets directly before him. He struck the outer two easily but consistently missed the one in the middle, much to his consternation. Huffer stiffened when he heard a derisive laugh behind him.

“Your aim’s getting better, Huff.”

Whirling around, finally unclamping his jaw, Huffer snapped, “And what’s it to you, Cliffjumper? You jealous?”

Cliffjumper looked surprised for a moment and then he glowered. “At least I hit the targets!”

“I have been!” Huffer shouted.

“Oh, really? Where?” Cliffjumper taunted, crossing his arms. Huffer turned back toward the targets and paused, anxiety trickling through his spark when he saw the lone target he’d missed. Where had the other targets gone? How had Cliff just made them disappear? Was it Hound? Had he created hologram targets? Was this a joke?

“You son-of-a-scrapheap,” Huffer barked, landing a solid hook to Cliffjumper’s jaw and putting him flat on his back. Not feeling satisfied at all but unwilling to let his anger make him reckless, he stormed away before Cliff could rise and come after him.

By the time he reached the Minibot quarters, he was in tears and he had to punch in the code four times before he got it right. He locked the door behind him—just in time, as Cliffjumper came banging and shouting insults. Huffer sank down onto his berth, knitting and unknitting his fingers and trying not to make his crying too audible.

When had the banging stopped? Had he actually recharged a little? Huffer checked his internal log and whimpered again, seeing that no recharge had been registered. When had he lost that time?

Another bang against the door, but it was different this time. “Huffer. We have to get in; we have to recharge,” Bumblebee called pleadingly.

Evening already. _No, please, no_. But he couldn’t wish ill on the rest of his pace. He wouldn’t doom them to his restless misery. Standing gingerly, he made it to the door and unlocked it. Surprisingly, the other Minibots were _all_ there.

“Bad day?” Brawn sighed as he entered, rubbing Huffer’s shoulder fleetingly. Huffer shrugged away from the touch, giving him a jerky nod. Brawn replied with an odd look before putting in, “Let’s just recharge and we can sort it out in the morning.”

If only…Huffer followed the others’ example and went through the motions of preparing for recharge, crawling into his berth and drawing the thermal tarp over his face. The light he saw through the tarp finally went out and he waited rigidly, waited for privacy so he could weep for a while longer. At least a joor later, he almost thought it safe, until a break in the natural hum gave him hesitation. He heard the shushing of another tarp and then a startled gasp. A long silence and then the clunk of footsteps on the floor.

“I can’t recharge,” Bumblebee whispered pitifully, just in case anyone was awake.

Sympathy burst through Huffer’s spark and he sat up immediately. “Bee? C’mere.”

The gratitude on Bumblebee’s face made Huffer feel happy for the first time all day or night. The scout scrambled onto the berth next to him and Huffer hugged him tightly.

“I feel silly,” Bee murmured against Huffer’s Autobot sigil. “Just cos of one nightmare, I can’t recharge.”

“I’ve been having nightmares too,” Huffer assured him softly, adding only in his mind: _Every day is a nightmare_. “It’s hard to rest when you get…”

“Scared,” Bumblebee finished for him. Huffer shuddered a little and tightened his grip on his friend, needing the contact just as much as Bee did. Bee eventually fell offline once more and Huffer tried to draw strength from that instead of his own.

He clung to that idea for three orns, but at last it was too much—not for him, but for the other Minibots. In the afternoon of the third orn, they hauled him out of the rec room and to their own, ready to confront him. Apparently they had constantly been trying to get his attention and had received nothing but blank stares beyond their optics.

“I’m sorry,” Huffer mumbled absentmindedly. “I just…” He paused, making a move for the door. Windcharger made a grab for his arm but he dodged it, opening the door. The rest of them prepared for the lunge if he tried to escape, but he simply stood there and then moved back toward them, leaving the door open and shaking his helm.

“I wonder where they went.”

“Where who went?” Windcharger demanded.

Huffer frowned at him. “Well, the door doesn’t exactly knock on itself, does it?”

Utter silence met his rhetoric and when Gears spoke, he sounded slightly sick. “No one knocked.”

“What are you talking about? Of course they did,” Huffer brushed him off dismissively. “It was probably one of the Twins trying to prank us. They’ll likely come back soon.” The distressed expressions on the faces around held no interest to him, but he suddenly felt on edge, like he were closed in.

“Why are you looking at me like I’m some kind of…freak?” he demanded agitatedly. In fact the closer he looked back at them, the more he saw the disgust, the repulsion. “What did I do to you?”

“You haven’t done anything,” Brawn answered, the rest of his words spoken in a lower, mocking tone: “ _Nothing but be yourself_.”

“Your _stupid_ , _whiny_ self,” Gears agreed, sneering.

“We don’t need you, but you _constantly_ need us,” Bumblebee sighed jadedly. “Why would we want any kind of relationship with _that_?”

“We don’t!” Windcharger concluded sharply. “Best let Ratchet cart you off somewhere.”

Huffer was going to protest, to plead with them—“I didn’t know I was that way, I’m just so tired, I can’t help it, I’m sorry, I’ll change”—but found his throat closing at what was happening to them now. Paralyzing terror seized him as his pace-mates’ armor twisted and doubled in over itself, melting from them and dribbling into puddles on the floor. Circuits kindled and set each other alight, whistling through the air as they burst from their proper places.

Only dull gray protoforms remained in the wiry frames, streaked with bubbling energon and swaying as though unsure if they wanted to stand or fall. But the _sparks_ …The sparks were flashing in different evil, shadowy colors, purples and blacks, seeping out of their chambers. Panic combined with the terror and he fumbled to reach out with numb hands, ready to catch the sparks before they split open on the floor. The ones he managed to capture burned him, leaking through his fingers and spattering like acid on his feet.

Slipping to his knees in horror, Huffer waited for the pool of scalding metal to soak into his own and melt it from him, joining him with his kin. Instead he only became aware of his own violent trembling and a cool wall against his back in the darkness.

Where was he?

Before he could fully process that question, a larger form entered the room. Huffer was too weary to stir, but his optics shifted to see the chief of security.

“Hello, Huffer,” Red Alert greeted him quietly, approaching and sitting about a yard away. Huffer wasn’t sure whether or not he was thankful for this presence, but it wouldn’t matter. Red Alert had the expression that told him he was going to stay.

“I should let Brawn know I found you,” Red Alert commented. “Last I saw him, he and the rest of your pace were trying to convince Optimus to put the _Ark_ in lockdown until you were found.”

“Brawn’s dead. They all are, and even if they weren’t, they don’t care about me at all,” Huffer informed him. Red Alert said nothing and he muttered bitterly, “You don’t believe me. You don’t trust me, do you?”

“You know me; I don’t trust anyone,” Red Alert said, regret clear in his tone.

“Just like Cliffjumper. How do you recharge at night?” Huffer whispered without any of the sarcasm he had intended.

“Most of the time I don’t,” Red Alert said simply. “I just stare at the ceiling in my room, holding onto the thermal tarp until my hands lock up.”

“And then you turn over,” Huffer continued hoarsely, forcing himself to sit upright. “You turn over and over and over until the pad is hot and has indents, which just makes you feel like you’re sinking into it and being swallowed.”

“Then you wonder if you’re really on a solid surface or if you’re in motion. It makes you feel like you’re going to purge,” Red Alert murmured. “You wonder if you’re really where you think you are.”

Huffer drew his knees up to his chest and hid his face in them. “What’s _happening_ to me?!” he gasped, his voice bordering on hysteria.

“Exactly what happened to me,” Red Alert replied gravely. “But there’s a difference between us.”

“What?”

“I have a way to fix it.”

Huffer’s helm jerked up, unshed coolant and unmistakable hope flaring the light of his optics. “ _You_ _do_?”

Red Alert nodded solemnly. “Yes, I do. Ratchet gave it to me; it’s a medical program that could knock out any Bot, even Prime or Ironhide, if he saw fit.”

Huffer’s expression became wary and he flinched a bit further into the corner. “You’re going to dump me somewhere on this rotten planet as soon as I’m comatose, aren’t you?” he accused. “I’m too great a ‘security risk’, running around…seeing things that aren’t there.”

Smiling even as he scoffed, Red Alert pointed out, “Are you seeing someone else in my place right now? Everyone on the _Ark_ thinks I’ve created the _art_ of paranoia.” Shifting forward, Red Alert held out a small chip. “This has the program on it. Please take it. I…know the road you’re going down and when you near the end, it gets… _so_ much worse.”

Huffer’s optics flicked from Red Alert’s hand to his face, filled with equal longing and distrust. After many long kliks, just when Red Alert was going to give up and withdraw the offering, Huffer snatched it up, unlatched his chest armor and plugged in the chip.

Numbers flipped through his vision as the program computed and Huffer vaguely wondered if it was another hallucination, but even as he began to think he’d been tricked, he recognized the recharge signals among the code. He sobbed quietly in gratitude.

“It’s going to work…” He felt tears spilling then and he was going to wipe at them but his arms felt too heavy to move and his optics refused to stay online.

When he powered on again, he found Bumblebee curled around one arm and Cliffjumper on top of the other. His upper half was pressed against Brawn and his lower half shared by Gears and Windcharger. He remained perfectly still, processing this change in scenery, and checked his recharge percentage.

99.98 %.

 _I’m sleeping in_.


End file.
